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I am pleased to present the latest MNO Weekly CryptoNews Digest for August 18–24, 2025. This week’s edition provides a comprehensive overview of the key developments, emerging trends, and critical market insights that are currently shaping the crypto industry.

From significant market shifts to behind-the-scenes strategic moves, I deliver a thorough analysis. This digest is designed to provide you with the essential information needed to navigate the evolving digital asset landscape, whether you are focused on long-term investments or seeking opportunities for growth.

I invite you to explore the most impactful news, notable trends, and informed perspectives in the world of digital finance.

COINBASE’S USD1 LISTING OF TRUMP-LINKED STABLECOIN DIVIDES NATION AND CRYPTO WORLD

Coinbase sent shockwaves across the financial and political landscape on Thursday, August 21, by officially listing USD1, a stablecoin project with direct links to President Donald Trump. The listing immediately became the week’s most polarizing event, granting a presidential-affiliated digital asset unprecedented access to the mainstream market. The project, operated by World Liberty Financial with Eric Trump on its board, was framed by supporters as a landmark for regulatory clarity under the new GENIUS Act. However, the move was met with an immediate and ferocious backlash, with critics decrying it as a blatant conflict of interest that dangerously merges political power with finance.

The market’s reaction throughout the latter half of the week was a chaotic mix of bullish enthusiasm and deep-seated apprehension. Bitcoin initially surged past $116,500 on the news, as traders interpreted the listing as a powerful endorsement from the highest echelons of power. However, by the weekend, the rally had cooled as ethical concerns mounted. On Friday, August 22, several watchdog groups announced formal inquiries into the listing, questioning whether Coinbase had been subjected to political pressure. This news caused a spike in market volatility, with ETH briefly dipping as investors grew wary of the potential regulatory fallout.

The debate raged on social media and financial news networks all week. Supporters, including prominent venture capitalists, lauded Coinbase for its “politically neutral” stance, arguing that all compliant assets deserve a place in the free market. They pointed to the GENIUS Act as the sole criterion for legitimacy. Conversely, opponents, including several lawmakers, called for congressional hearings, arguing the move sets a perilous precedent. By Saturday, August 23, the hashtag #CoinbasePolitics was trending, filled with heated arguments over whether the exchange had betrayed the core ethos of crypto’s apolitical foundations or simply adapted to a new political reality.

The long-term implications of this listing were still being processed as the week closed. The event has irrevocably tied a major digital asset to a sitting U.S. President, ensuring that the performance and governance of USD1 will be subject to intense political scrutiny. The controversy has also put other exchanges in a difficult position, forcing them to decide whether to follow Coinbase’s lead and risk political backlash or refuse and face accusations of censorship. This single listing has accelerated the convergence of Washington and the crypto industry, setting the stage for a new era where digital assets are not just financial instruments, but political statements.

WEEK OF BRUTAL VOLATILITY SEES BITCOIN CRASH FROM ALL-TIME HIGH, LEAVING MARKET IN FEAR

The week began with the crypto market nursing wounds from Bitcoin’s sharp rejection after hitting a new all-time high of $124,000 the previous week. Monday, August 18, saw BTC struggling to hold the $115,000 support level as analysts warned of a “fear and greed” reset. This fear materialized on Tuesday, August 19, with a market-wide sell-off that dragged Bitcoin down to a weekly low of just under $113,000. The rapid descent triggered over $1 billion in liquidations of leveraged long positions, marking one of the most brutal liquidation events of the year and cementing a tone of extreme anxiety for the days to follow.

The midweek period was characterized by choppy price action and a frantic search for a market bottom. Bitcoin chopped sideways between $113,000 and $115,000 from Wednesday to Friday, with every minor rally being aggressively sold off. The downturn was fueled by broader macroeconomic uncertainty, as traders nervously awaited signals from the Federal Reserve. Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows, a major driver of the bull run, slowed to a trickle, indicating that institutional buyers were pausing to gauge the market’s stability. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index remained firmly in “Fear” territory, reflecting the shattered confidence of retail investors.

A significant debate emerged over the health of the bull market. Bears, like analyst Benjamin Cowen, pointed to historical charts suggesting this correction was the beginning of a larger market top, similar to previous post-halving cycles. They argued that the “easy money” had been made. Bulls, however, maintained that the underlying fundamentals remained strong. They highlighted the resilience of the hash rate and the continued, albeit slower, institutional demand. By the weekend, dip-buyers began to re-emerge, pushing BTC back towards the $116,000 level on Saturday, August 23, offering a glimmer of hope.

As the week concluded on Sunday, August 24, the market was left in a state of precarious balance. While Bitcoin had recovered from its lows, it remained significantly below its recent peak, and conviction was low. The week served as a harsh reminder of crypto’s inherent volatility. The key question on every investor’s mind was whether this was a healthy consolidation before a push to new highs or the definitive end of the 2025 bull run. The answer likely hinges on the Federal Reserve’s next move and whether institutional confidence can be fully restored.

BINANCE IGNITES BNB WITH ‘HODLER AIRDROPS,’ BUT FACES CENTRALIZATION CRITICISM

On Tuesday, August 19, Binance announced its “HODLer Airdrops” program, a major strategic initiative to reward long-term holders of its native BNB token. The program’s first featured project was revealed to be Plume, a blockchain focused on the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWAs). The exchange confirmed that it had taken a snapshot of user balances on Monday and would distribute PLUME tokens to BNB holders, creating an immediate and powerful new incentive to hold the asset. The news was designed to bolster BNB’s utility and create a loyalty loop for its most committed users.

The announcement had a tangible and positive effect on BNB’s price throughout the week. While the broader market was experiencing a downturn, BNB demonstrated remarkable strength. It climbed steadily from its opening price on Monday, pushing past the $840 resistance level by Wednesday, August 20. The airdrop news created a strong demand floor for the token, as traders and investors accumulated BNB to ensure they would be eligible for future airdrops from other up-and-coming projects.

However, by the weekend, the narrative began to shift as critics raised pointed questions about centralization. On forums and social media, prominent developers and analysts argued that while the program was beneficial for BNB holders, it further solidified Binance’s immense power as a “kingmaker” in the industry. The debate, which gained traction on Friday, August 22, centered on whether Binance’s curation of airdrop projects created an unfair competitive landscape, effectively forcing new protocols to seek the exchange’s blessing for a successful launch.

As the week closed, the “HODLer Airdrops” program was viewed as a double-edged sword. It was undeniably a brilliant marketing and tokenomics move that successfully drove value to BNB and rewarded loyal customers. At the same time, it highlighted the persistent tension between the centralized giants that onboard most users and the decentralized ethos the crypto industry was built upon. The program’s success will likely inspire other exchanges to follow suit, further intensifying the debate around the power and responsibility of centralized platforms in shaping the future of Web3.

SOLANA’S RECORD-BREAKING WEEK MARRED BY MEMECOIN MANIA AND CENTRALIZATION DEBATE

Solana (SOL) was a standout performer this week, rallying over 10% to challenge the $200 level while most other assets bled. The bullish momentum was kicked off early in the week by the announcement of a 2x leveraged SOL ETF filing by Tidal Trust II, signaling strong institutional interest. This was followed by a technical milestone on Wednesday, August 20, when network analytics firm Blocktrace confirmed Solana had sustained a throughput of over 107,000 transactions per second (TPS), a new record for a major blockchain.

This impressive technical performance, however, was largely driven by a frenzy of speculative activity that raised serious concerns. The launch of the controversial YZY memecoin, loosely affiliated with Kanye West, caused a massive surge in network traffic. While the network handled the load without crashing—a significant improvement over past performance—critics were quick to point out that the majority of these record-breaking transactions were from bots and memecoin traders. This sparked a debate that intensified towards the end of the week about the quality and sustainability of Solana’s on-chain activity.

The centralization debate, a long-standing issue for Solana, also resurfaced with renewed vigor. On Thursday, August 21, an analysis report circulated widely, highlighting the network’s relatively small number of validators and the influence of the Solana Foundation. Critics argued that the trade-off for its high speed was an unacceptable degree of centralization, which stood in stark contrast to Ethereum’s more decentralized but slower architecture. Supporters countered that this was a necessary and temporary trade-off for achieving mass adoption.

By the end of the week, Solana found itself in a paradoxical position. Its price performance was stellar, and its technical capacity had been proven under extreme load. Yet, the week’s events had also amplified the most persistent criticisms against it: a reliance on speculative hype rather than utility-driven applications and fundamental questions about its decentralization. The week served as a microcosm of the Solana dilemma—a project with immense potential and performance, yet one that continues to grapple with its identity and core architectural trade-offs.

US TREASURY’S REVIEW OF ILLICIT CRYPTO USE SPARKS INDUSTRY-WIDE ANXIETY

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday, August 18, launched a formal and sweeping review into the role of cryptocurrencies in illicit finance, sending a chill through the industry. The announcement, framed as a necessary step under the GENIUS Act, opened a 60-day public comment period. The Treasury explicitly stated it was seeking information on how to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion across the entire digital asset ecosystem, including decentralized finance (DeFi) and privacy-enhancing technologies.

The initial reaction was a dip in the prices of privacy coins like Monero and Zcash, as investors priced in the risk of a potential regulatory crackdown. Throughout the week, the implications of the Treasury’s review became a dominant topic of discussion among crypto legal experts, developers, and advocacy groups. By Wednesday, August 20, major crypto think tanks like Coin Center had published initial analyses, warning that the scope of the review was dangerously broad and could lead to regulations that stifle innovation and infringe on financial privacy.

The core of the debate, which played out all week, was the classic clash between privacy and security. Law enforcement officials and some lawmakers praised the Treasury’s proactive stance, arguing that the pseudo-anonymous nature of crypto posed a clear and present danger to national security. They pointed to the need for greater visibility into DeFi protocols and cross-chain bridges, which have been exploited by illicit actors.

On the other side, the crypto industry began mobilizing for a coordinated response. On Friday, August 22, a coalition of DeFi projects and crypto advocacy groups announced they would be submitting a joint comment to the Treasury. Their position emphasized that blockchain technology offers unprecedented transparency and that overly restrictive regulations would only push illicit activity to unregulated offshore platforms, making it harder for law enforcement to track. The week ended with the industry bracing for a regulatory battle that could fundamentally reshape the landscape for privacy and decentralization in the United States.

CORPORATE GIANT BITMINE’S $6.6B ETHEREUM BET FUELS ALTCOIN MARKET HOPES

BitMine Immersion Technologies, a major publicly traded company, shocked the market on Monday, August 18, by revealing it had increased its Ethereum holdings to a colossal $6.6 billion. The disclosure, which included the recent purchase of 373,000 ETH, instantly made BitMine the largest corporate holder of Ethereum and signaled a massive vote of confidence in the network’s future. The company’s chairman, Tom Lee, explicitly compared the current moment for Ethereum to the end of the gold standard, suggesting a fundamental paradigm shift was underway.

The news provided a much-needed boost to Ethereum, which saw its price rally against Bitcoin throughout the week despite the broader market downturn. ETH showed relative strength, holding its ground above key support levels while other altcoins suffered heavier losses. The announcement sparked a wave of speculation about a potential “corporate flippening,” where companies might begin to diversify their digital asset treasuries away from a sole focus on Bitcoin and towards a portfolio approach that includes major altcoins like Ethereum.

This event fueled a significant narrative shift in market discussions all week. While the conversation is often dominated by Bitcoin’s role as a treasury reserve asset, BitMine’s monumental ETH bet forced investors to seriously consider the corporate use case for productive, yield-bearing assets. Analysts spent the week debating whether this was an isolated, high-risk move by a single company or the beginning of a larger trend where corporations would seek to hold assets that can be staked or used within the DeFi ecosystem to generate yield.

However, the move also drew skepticism. By the end of the week, some financial analysts began to question the prudence of such a massive, concentrated bet on a volatile asset. They raised concerns about shareholder risk and the potential impact on BitMine’s stock, which is now inextricably tied to Ethereum’s price fluctuations. Despite the skepticism, the week-long discussion solidified the idea that corporate treasury strategies are evolving, opening the door for other large-cap altcoins to be considered as serious investment assets by the traditional business world.

CHAINLINK (LINK) DECOUPLES FROM MARKET, WHALES ACCUMULATE AMIDST CHAOS

In a week marked by widespread losses, Chainlink’s LINK token stood out as a beacon of stability, largely thanks to a massive accumulation spree by its largest holders. While Bitcoin and other major altcoins saw their prices tumble, LINK held firm around the $25 price point. On-chain data released on Tuesday, August 19, and updated throughout the week, showed that whale wallets had been aggressively buying the dip, adding over 1.15 million LINK tokens to their stacks.

This whale activity became a major talking point as the week progressed. The stark divergence between LINK’s price action and the rest of the market fueled the “decoupling” narrative. By Thursday, August 21, analysts were pointing to the shrinking supply of LINK on exchanges as further evidence that a supply shock was underway. The data suggested that long-term investors with deep pockets were moving their tokens into cold storage, signaling a strong belief in the project’s future and a disinterest in short-term price fluctuations.

The debate centered on why Chainlink was showing such strength. The consensus was that sophisticated investors view LINK not as a speculative bet, but as a critical piece of Web3 infrastructure. With the Real World Asset (RWA) sector gaining significant traction, the need for Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network to securely bring off-chain data on-chain is becoming more apparent than ever. The accumulation was seen as a “smart money” bet on the foundational role Chainlink will play in connecting blockchain ecosystems to the real world.

As the week closed, LINK’s resilience in the face of market turmoil was interpreted as a sign of its maturity as an asset. It demonstrated that projects with clear, indispensable utility can develop their own market dynamics, independent of Bitcoin’s gravitational pull. The week-long accumulation by whales served as a powerful bullish signal, suggesting that while the broader market was gripped by fear, the biggest players were quietly placing their long-term bets on the fundamental infrastructure of DeFi.

HOUSE GOP ATTACHES CBDC BAN TO ‘MUST-PASS’ DEFENSE BILL IN HIGH-STAKES GAMBLE

A political bombshell dropped on Washington and the crypto world on Wednesday, August 20, as reports confirmed that House Republicans had successfully inserted language from the “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act” into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This strategic move attaches a functional ban on a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) to the essential annual bill that funds the entire military. The tactic is a high-stakes political gamble designed to force the Senate and the White House to either accept the CBDC ban or risk a standoff over military funding.

The news immediately intensified the political polarization surrounding digital currencies. Throughout the week, proponents of the ban celebrated the move as a crucial step in protecting American financial privacy. They argued on news channels and social media that a CBDC would grant the government unprecedented surveillance powers, a risk too great to entertain. They positioned privately issued stablecoins, regulated under the GENIUS Act, as the pro-freedom alternative for the future of the dollar.

The move was met with outrage from opponents, who spent the latter part of the week condemning it as a reckless and ideologically driven maneuver. On Friday, August 22, a group of prominent economists and tech policy experts issued a joint letter warning that preemptively banning a digital dollar would be a “historic mistake.” They argued that it would cede financial innovation to China and other geopolitical rivals, ultimately undermining the U.S. dollar’s global dominance. They accused the bill’s sponsors of using a critical defense bill to score political points.

As the week concluded, the fate of the U.S. digital dollar was more uncertain than ever. The attachment of the ban to the NDAA has transformed the debate from a theoretical policy discussion into a high-stakes legislative battle. The focus now shifts to the Senate, where a contentious fight is expected. This week’s events have ensured that the future of money in the United States will be decided not just by economists and technologists, but through a bare-knuckle political brawl.

INJECTIVE’S ON-CHAIN GPU MARKET LAUNCH MARKS KEY MILESTONE FOR DEPIN

On Monday, August 18, Injective Protocol made waves by launching the first-ever on-chain marketplace for trading the rental rates of high-demand Nvidia H100 GPUs. The platform allows users to speculate on and hedge the price of accessing high-performance computing power, a novel financial primitive at the intersection of AI and DeFi. The launch was a significant technical achievement and a major development for the burgeoning Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) sector.

The market’s reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Injective’s native INJ token saw a healthy surge in price early in the week, bucking the broader market trend as traders recognized the first-mover advantage and immense potential of the new marketplace. Throughout the week, the platform saw a steady increase in trading volume as both crypto-native users and AI developers began to experiment with this new tool for managing computational costs.

The launch sparked a week-long, forward-looking conversation about the future of DePIN and the tokenization of real-world resources. Experts lauded the move as a landmark example of how blockchain can create transparent and efficient markets for traditionally opaque and illiquid assets. The ability to create a futures market for GPU time was seen as a “killer app” that could solve a real-world problem for the booming AI industry, which is often hampered by a shortage of and volatile pricing for computing power.

By the end of the week, Injective’s GPU marketplace was being hailed as a proof-of-concept for the entire DePIN sector. It demonstrated a tangible use case for blockchain technology beyond simple finance, showing its potential to optimize the allocation of critical physical and digital resources across the globe. The successful launch has set a new standard and will likely inspire a new wave of innovation as other projects look to tokenize and create markets for other real-world assets like data storage, bandwidth, and energy.

TOKENIZED TREASURIES AND PRIVATE CREDIT PUSH RWA MARKET PAST $26 BILLION

Throughout the week, new data from blockchain analytics firms revealed that the market for tokenized Real World Assets (RWAs) had swelled to a new high of $26.3 billion. While still a niche sector compared to the broader crypto market, its rapid and steady growth stood in stark contrast to the volatility seen elsewhere. The reports, which were widely circulated and discussed starting mid-week, highlighted that the expansion was being driven not by stablecoins, but by the increasing tokenization of U.S. Treasury bills and private credit funds.

This sustained growth became a key talking point, symbolizing a quiet but powerful shift in the industry’s focus towards sustainable, real-world yield. On Wednesday, August 20, BlackRock’s tokenized fund, BUIDL, saw another week of consistent inflows, underscoring the growing institutional comfort with on-chain fixed-income products. The narrative all week was that while speculative assets were falling, the foundational rails for bringing traditional finance on-chain were being strengthened.

The trend has sparked debate about the “real yield” revolution in DeFi. Proponents argued that the integration of RWAs is the most important development for the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem. It provides a source of stable, uncorrelated yield that is not dependent on speculative token emissions, making DeFi a more attractive and resilient financial system. This offers a compelling alternative to the low-yield environment of traditional finance.

However, the week’s discussions also brought the challenges to the forefront. On Friday, August 22, a panel of legal experts discussed the complexities of RWA tokenization, including issues of bankruptcy remoteness, legal enforceability, and the operational risks of relying on off-chain custodians and servicers. Despite these hurdles, the consensus by the end of the week was that the RWA sector had reached a critical mass. Its steady climb in a down market was a powerful statement that the future of crypto is inextricably linked to its ability to successfully integrate with and tokenize the trillions of dollars in assets from the traditional world.

And with that, I’m clocking out for a quick Sunday reset — but before I disappear into the weekend haze, I need YOU to drop your take in the latest MNO TalkBack poll. Your voice drives the convo, and it’s how I lock in what to tackle next.

No stress — I’ll be back next Sunday with a fresh edition of the Weekly CryptoNews Digest. Expect wild revelations, sharp data drops, and profit-packed strategies you won’t catch anywhere else. I’m talking about the real keys to stacking and safeguarding your crypto stash like a seasoned vet.

Truth is, your grind and feedback are what make MNO the most dialed-in crypto community out there. I’m genuinely thankful for every one of you. Let’s keep chasing that digital bread, side by side. For Money Lovers, always.